Improvement in processes for treating paints



4 "UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

GABRIEL BLONDIN OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

IMPROVEMENT IN PROCESSES FOR TREATING PAINTS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. ll,lll, dated June 20, 1854.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, GABRIEL BLONDIN, of the city, county, and State of New York, have invented a new and useful Method of Hardening and Fixing a Certain Kind of Paint, which consists of a pigment mixed with an albuminous vehicle after the same has been spread in a liquid condition over the wall or other surface to be coated or protected, of which the following is a specification.

The coating of paint, when hardened, is sufficiently fixed to resist the solvent action of soap and water or weak alkaline solutions, as those agents are usually employed for cleansing painted surfaces; and the finished surface is also capable of resisting uninjured such mechanical action as is necessary in cleansing it by washing and scouring. The pigments cinployed for this purpose are such as are ordinarily found in market in the dry state, and they are finely pulverized, as if intended to be mixed with oil or varnish as a vehicle. The albumen employed is uncoagulatcd, and such as is usually found in commerce in a dried state. It is also pulverized finely. The dry powdered pigment'and albumen are mixed in due proportions and put up in papers, canisters, kegs, or in any other suitable manner, and may he kept for years, if preserved from moisture.

At any time that the paint is required it is only necessary to mix the composition of pigment and albumen in a suitable quantity of s ft water, which should stand long enough for the albumen to be dissolved. The whole should then be thoroughly stirred up, when it is ready to be spread by a brush over the surface to be coated with it.

After the paint is applied and has hadtime to dry it should be treated by some substance which will neither decompose nor bleach the pigment, nor stain either the pigment or albumen, but which will coagulate the latter. A jet of steam I have found very eifective for this purpose, but washing the surface with a1- cohol will accomplish the object very satisfactorily. There are various other agents well known for coagulating albumen, and I intend to use any of them that I may find suitable and convenient for the purpose. After the albumen has been in this manner coagulated itanust he suffered to become dry and hard before it is again disturbed. The surface presented by paint thus treated is flat; but it may, if desired, be varnished to give it a gloss.

The proportion of albumen required for different kinds of pigment varies very much-as, for example, a given quantity of Spanish brown does not require more than a quarter as much albumen to make a proper vehicle for it as is required to make a vehicle for the same quantity of white lead. Again, different qualities of the same kind of pigment require different quantities of albumen. Another source of irregularity in the relative proportions of the albumen and pigments is the variations in the kind and quality of the albumen. An average specimen of what is known in the market as the best white lead will require from one-sixteenth to one-eighteenth part of its weight of I dry albumen of the best quality in market at one time, while a quality of albumen apparently the same found in the market at another time will make a good vehicle it mixed with the lead in half the before-named proportions. Under these circumstances no definite rule can be given for the proportions ot'the pigment and albumen, and it must be left to the skill and experience of the manufacturer of the composition to determine according to the quality of the materials he is employing.

As the proportion of the albumen and pigments and thcirinixture in due proportions into a paint composition ready to be stirred in the water can only he carried on with a due regard to uniformity of quality and economy of production upon the large scale, and in a manufactory specially fitted for the purpose and managed by a person of experience, the before-mentioned difficulties in the way of giving precise rules for proportioning the ingredients ot' the composition is of little importance.

As I have claimed the composition herein described of albuminous paint-powder as a new manufacture in an application for another patent, I make no claim to it here.

-What I now claim is-- The hardening and fixing of paint of which albumen is'a constituent by coagulating the albumen after the paint has been spread, substantially as herein set forth.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto sub scribed my name.

GABRIEL BLONDIN.

Witnesses:

P. H. WATSON, SAML. GRUBB. 

